Friday, March 9, 2012

If you were
worried there wouldn’t be a 2012 candidate touting the pro-Crusades platform,
then today is your lucky day!

“The idea
that the Crusades and the fight of Christendom against Islam is somehow an
aggression on our part is absolutely anti-historical,” former Sen. Rick
Santorum (R-PA) told a South Carolina audience yesterday. “And that is what the
perception is by the American left who hates Christendom.”…

Referring to
the “American left,” Santorum observed: “They hate Western civilization at the
core. That’s the problem.” Santorum also suggested that American involvement in
the Middle East is part of our “core American values.”

“What I’m
talking about is onward American soldiers,” Santorum continued. “What we’re
talking about are core American values. ‘All men are created equal’ — that’s a
Christian value, but it’s an American value.”

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Doctor Riley
of Utah, the abortion murder charges against her, got dropped almost in a
middle of the night scenario and were first reported in a local Maryland news
site. The prosecution could not find any
reputable expert witnesses to testify at their pro-life political election year
witch trial.

I do not
want to say anything further on that.

I was
however touched by a blog of one of Dr. Riley’s transgender patients named “Dexter”
whose words I cannot equal except in the joy that she is free to go on doing
her much needed work.

My pharmacy
is now charging around $85 for a generic (Watson) 10ml 200mg/ml testosterone
cypionate. Up from $58. They said there’s a shortage or something…

Anyway, I
felt pretty nervous about bringing this prescription in due to the sudden
arrest of my doctor, Nicola Riley, on December 28th. I’ve wanted to blog about
this for a while, but haven’t been able to until now. During my last
appointment with her just a week before her arrest, she forewarned me, “I’m
involved in a trial and I’m not sure how it is going to go. So, just in case,
I’m writing your prescription out for as long as I can.” Now that she’d been
arrested, I wasn’t sure if the pharmacy would accept the prescription or not.
Fortunately, they did.

She had been
arrested under Maryland’s 2005 fetal homicide law, in connection to
a 2010 abortion she’d performed there while working under a doctor named Steven
Brigham. She was deemed a “monster” by the local media and various online
sources. However, a few weeks later a more sympathetic article came out
about her in the Salt Lake Tribune that included
interviews with a couple of her transgender patients.

According to
this article, she had accepted a job from Brigham. He would start
abortions in New Jersey and Riley would finish them in Maryland where state law
allowed later-term abortions (i.e. after 25 weeks). After working there for two
weeks, one of her patients experienced a problem during the procedure. Riley
immediately rushed her to the ER, where it turned out that the patient’s uterus
had been punctured. This is a known risk of abortion and was Riley’s first
complication in five years of performing abortions. She lost her license in
Maryland, due to “endangering” this patient and for working with an unlicensed
doctor for two weeks. The anti-abortion group Operation Rescue was,
of course, involved in that investigation and deemed her license loss “a victory
for the pro-life movement”.

The same
group had spearheaded the witch hunt in Utah, where Dr. Riley was one of three
doctors who would perform abortions in the entire state. I remember about a
year ago when a local Fox news report ran with the headline, Do you
know who your doctor really is?. It was, of course, all ominous and about
Nicola Riley.

It’s been a
huge knot in my stomach since this has all happened. To see my genuinely
passionate doctor raked through the mud who has dedicated her life to providing
services to women in need and marginalized communities. Especially
when, like many other doctors, she could have easily chosen to turn her back
due to the risks. My friend, Dominique Storni, summed it up well when she said
of Dr. Riley:

“She is a
woman who cares about humanity. The bulk of her practice was helping
marginalized populations — people with no jobs, lower income, racial
minorities, gender minorities,”

Practically
every trans person I know has been a patient of Dr. Riley’s at some point. I
can’t say this for any other physician - especially when every doctor I’d gone
to before her had been ludicrously trans-ignorant. Something that’s not a
problem for most cisgender women, a pap smear, is traumatic for me as a trans
person. I had avoided ever getting one. When physicians tried, they would
become confused and frustrated. Eventually, they would get angry at me and just
give up. Some went as far as to tell me that I didn’t need pap smears - ever,
just to save themselves the trouble of dealing with me.

When I saw
Dr.Riley, I did my best to avoid anything to do with a pap smear. She was not
fooled. She knew what was going on and deftly countered all of my diversions
and excuses. She cornered me into getting a pap smear right there and then.
Knowing how traumatic this was for me, she took extraordinary measures to make
it as comfortable and non-traumatic as possible. What is normally a quick
procedure took her three hours. While I’m not going to assume that she hasn’t
made any mistakes just because my experience with her has been so positive, I
am certainly not going to accept every allegation as fact.

I’ve been
stunned by how the pro-life propaganda against her has been uncritically
regurgitated by the media and by many people who should know better. Even some
pro-choice people are soaking this up like a sponge. A procedure went wrong.
This happens all of the time in hospitals. When a patient checks in for a
surgical procedure they’re required to fill out a number of forms acknowledging
the risk involved (e.g. injury or death). Every surgeon in every hospital is
not a murderer because they require patients to sign these forms. They know
procedures can and do go wrong.

What would
have happened if there had been complications with my top surgery? I was warned
in advance that there was a real risk of complication - even the possibility of
death. My top surgery took place in a clinic. If something had gone wrong, the
plan was to take me to the E.R., unconscious. This is exactly what happened in
the case of Dr. Riley. Does this imply that all surgeries done in clinics,
outside of a hospital, are shady, back alley operations? And that every doctor
who performs surgery in clinics outside of a hospital must have their license
to practice revoked? Of course not.

I feel so
sad for her. Because she goes out on a limb for those who need her the most,
she’s being witch hunted and even some people she has helped are going right
along with it. Death threats, harassed, chased out, and now - being tried as a
murderer under an entirely bogus and very strategic anti-choice “fetal death”
law. At the very least, she deserves the presumption of innocence. We
have an obligation to stand up for her and look at these allegations with
responsible skepticism. Think hard about whether the allegations make
sense or not, whether there are possible explanations - or if they might be
entirely false.

In
August of 2010, Dr. Riley provided a lawful and consensual second trimester
pregnancy termination in a county in Maryland. She is now the subject of a
prosecution for an alleged fetal homicide that the authorities claim was viable
at 20 weeks.

On
December 28, 2011, eighteen police officers and federal marshals, came to Dr.
Riley’s home (her family and minors present), with guns drawn and arrested her
for murder. She was held without bail for twenty three days. The Maryland
State’s Attorney used a 2005 fetal homicide law which had previously been used
to prosecute defendants who attacked pregnant women and caused the demise of
their fetuses for murder. Prior to Dr. Riley’s indictment, no doctor had ever
been charged with murder for performing an abortion. In fact Maryland law
provides doctors and patients with immunity for performing/consenting to this
lawful medical procedure.

If
this case is successful, although the law guarantees a women’s right to a safe
legal abortion, there will be no doctors to perform them. What doctor would
risk being prosecuted for murder to perform a legal abortion?

Dr.
Riley has denied any criminal liability and through counsel is contesting the
overreaching of both the Maryland statute and the prosecution that threatens
Dr. Riley, as well as the many women who seek lawful, competent advice and
services. To do so may require the assistance of experts to assist Dr. Riley
and her defense counsel.

ELKTON, MD. — A judge has set a trial date of June 27 for a Utah
abortion doctor charged with murder for the death of a fetus during a 2010
procedure in Maryland.

Dr. Nicola Riley is charged under a Maryland
law that allows prosecutors to pursue murder charges in the death of a viable
fetus. Her former colleague, Dr. Steven Brigham of Voorhees, has been charged
in the deaths of five fetuses.

The law had not previously been used against
abortion doctors, and attorneys for both doctors have argued that they are
immune from prosecution. But Cecil County prosecutors have indicated they
believe any killing of a viable fetus is homicide.

Riley’s trial is scheduled to last through
mid-July. Brigham is scheduled for trial starting on June 6.

Other
Ways to Help

Please
contact your local branch of the following organizations and ask them to
support the defense of Dr. Riley.

Santorum
was using the devil-tinged language after explaining Obama's position on
abortion. He quoted Bishop Samuel Aquila of Fargo, North Dakota, who said
at the time, “Catholics who support so-called ‘abortion rights’ support a false
right, promote a culture of death and are guarded by the father of lies."

"This
is not a political war at all, this is not a culture war at all, this is a
spiritual war," Santorum said, according to a recording of the speech on
the university's website. "And the father of lies has his sights on what
you think the father of lies, Satan, would have his sights on. A good,
decent, powerful, influential country, the United States of America."

The speech
gained a new life this week when it surfaced on the websiteRight
Wing Watchand was
then picked up by the Drudge Report and a host of media outlets.

"If
you were Satan, who would you attack?" the former U.S. senator asked the
students. "There's no one else to go after other than the United
States, and that's been the case, for now, almost 200 years."

Santorum
went on to explain how he thought the devil had attacked the United States in
several areas: its foundations, academia, the Protestant Church and government.

Satan
had relatively little success attacking the founders and the foundation of the
country, said Santorum, who is a practicing Catholic. But time, like an
acid, wore away America's great institutions, "using those great vices of
pride, vanity and sensuality as the root to attack all of the strong plants
that has so deeply rooted in the American tradition," he said.

Santorum
said Satan was first, and most successfully, attacked academia. Once
academia fell to pride and its own truths, he said, the Protestant Church fell
next in the United States.

"We
look at the shape of mainline Protestantism in this country, and it is in
shambles, it is gone from the world of Christianity as I see it," he said.

(AP) TRENTON, N.J. - Gov. Chris Christie has followed
through on his promise to reject a bill allowing same-sex marriage in New
Jersey by quickly vetoing the measure Friday.

The veto came a day after the state Assembly passed the bill. The
state Senate had passed it on Monday. Christie, a Republican who opposes
same-sex marriage, had vowed "very swift action" once the bill
reached his desk.

In returning the bill to the Legislature, Christie reaffirmed his
view that voters should decide whether to change the definition of marriage in
New Jersey. His veto also proposed creating an ombudsman to oversee compliance
with the state's civil union law, which same-sex couples have said is flawed.

"I am adhering to what I've said since this bill was first
introduced -- an issue of this magnitude and importance, which requires a
constitutional amendment, should be left to the people of New Jersey to
decide," Christie said in a statement. "I continue to encourage the
Legislature to trust the people of New Jersey and seek their input by allowing
our citizens to vote on a question that represents a profoundly significant
societal change. This is the only path to amend our State Constitution and the
best way to resolve the issue of same-sex marriage in our state."

This whole contraception debate is just so new-fangled, says billionaire investor and mega-funder to the super PAC supporting former Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) for President, Foster Friess.

In a simpler time, there were other ways to deal with female sexual desire. “Back in my day, they used Bayer Aspirin for contraceptives. The gals put it between their knees and it wasn’t that costly,” he said Thursday on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, setting the host back for moment.

The general conversation was about Santorum’s past statements about contraception, who once said that it was “harmful to women.”

The full exchange:

Mitchell: Do you have any concerns about some of his comments on social issues, contraception, about women in combat, and whether that would hurt his general election campaign would he be the nominee?

Friess: I get such a chuckle when these things come out. Here we have millions of our fellow Americans unemployed, we have jihadist camps being set up in Latin America, which Rick has been warning about, and people seem to be so preoccupied with sex. I think it says something about our culture. We maybe need a massive therapy session so we can concentrate on what the real issues are. And this contraceptive thing, my gosh, it’s such inexpensive. Back in my day, they used Bayer aspirin for contraceptives. The gals put it between their knees and it wasn’t that costly.

War
on Religion equals We Hate Sex is a quote I think from the Daily Kos guy on
Olbermann.

Somewhere
along the timeline, the fear factor that is the Republican Party merged with
the Roman Catholic church. The church's
fear of sex, all sex, and the aging white boomers' male fear of not being able to get it up
is the foundation of this new social construct in America. That, rather than issues being discussed
in the current election cycle.

Obama’s
new so-called “war on religion” is just a personification of the old south myth
about the rogue colored man raping the white women fear factor.

The
word of course would be rape. No free
white woman would cross the color line.
No free white woman could enjoy sex with a member of another species and
or race. Enjoy sex that white men are not capable of giving.

And
of course, the war on Obama is a coded wink nod war against his color or half
color so to speak.

And
the fear of sex by the so called seventy year old male virgins running the RCC
is a surrogate war on Obama via women and their strange vagina things by these
strange men, really creatures, in dresses, still actively, perceptually, living the Roman Empire life fifteen
hundred years after the death of that empire.

Men
are from Mars; Women are from Venus; Bishops are from Closets?

The
churches are empty.

The Government subsidizes the churches via crony faith
based capitalism.

While I believe some physical churches in the USA could be
turned into museums like in Rome for the lack of a flock, maybe we should just
close all the churches and just send the monthly government faith based subsidy entitlement to some lock box at Wall Street or Vatican City.

There
was an op-ed article in the Philadelphia Inquirer yesterday by the current
bishop there stating how the HHS mandate for full women’s healthcare is somehow
“insulting and dangerous” to Charles Chaput’s sacred tradition of faith to denigrate
women and their body functions.

“Many Catholics are confused and angry. They
should be.”

The
church is confused because the bishops do not listen to women. When women talk,
the bishops hear nothing. This “hold the pickles, hold the lettuce” dietary
rule for females only, regarding healthcare, is a bit not true deli and does not ring true to the rest of us
in the American Equality pursuit of happiness thingy.

That
somewhere along the timeline, George W. Bush started doling out government
bailouts to the churches, who by the way no longer listen to their members, who
by the way no longer sustain their membership numbers now that these churches have their
crony business fronts for the poor in the form of “social service” programs – whatever
that means.

Churches
are no longer in the business of faith.

Churches are simply in business.
And getting crony government bailouts in the process.

Surely
in these hard economic times, many of the bloated contracts being handed out as
Pork to these “faith-based” crony capitalism organizations could be done more
cheaply and efficiently in the private secular sector of the economy.

That
way, the meager healthcare services offered to the crony relatives of these
crony handout “faith-based” programs to these churches will no longer have to be
challenged by any HHS mandates.

No exceptions or religious
privileges will have to be demanded by this new generation of screaming neo-con welfare queens – the bishops
– once they go out of business and go back to “Faith”.

In
other words, get your lips off the government teat and stop whining about being
abused as you more than likely mismanage the government crony dole you are now getting on the tax payers' dime.

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Over the years, one gets the idea that some little humble
Catholic monastery/nunnery in the middle of Alabama is the best place to air
black and white reruns of Insight and Bishop Sheen’s instructions on how to
survive the coming nuclear holocaust with the Soviet Union, that that
particular propaganda TV station amidst the cows and pastures is a little bit
more than it seems.

That Sister Rizzo is just a front with the Religious TV
Scam???

I don’t know why a Cable TV station feels that it must sue
the Federal Government over HHS fair trade rules, but hey, if you’ve got GOP
Pac money and the Becket Fund behind you, why not get on the overpaid martyr
bandwagon against the Negro Predender President Barack Obama, it is as good as
any other place to restart the culture war and hate that seems to be the
vinegar blood of the RCC controlled by the Neo-Con Bishops and Neo-Con
politicians these days.

The War for control of the New Global Town Square and New Global
Culture – Game On.

The Becket Fund was founded in
1994 byKevin Hasson, who had
previously worked at theOffice
of Legal Counselat theJustice Departmentand the Washington law firmWilliams & Connolly, in which
capacity he became well-known and controversial for defending Catholic
University's decision to fireCharles
Curranfor his opposition to
Church doctrine despite his being one of the most widely respected Catholic
moral theologians in the academic community. This fact has raised serious
questions in academic circles about the sincerity of Hasson's, and by extension
the Becket Fund's, commitment to religious freedom.

Hasson named The Becket Fund afterThomas Becket, who was murdered
accidentally in 1170 after a long series of altercations and events between the
English monarch and state, the papacy and Becket.

In January 2007, Becket Fund Vice President and General CounselAnthony Picarello, Jr.was named byAmerican Lawyer magazine as one
of the fifty most promising young litigators in the United States. Picarello
became General Counsel of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) in late September 2007.

Hasson signed his name to a
full-page advertisement in the December 5, 2008 edition of The New York Times which objected to
violence and intimidation against religious institutions following the passage
of Proposition 8.

(What I don’t understand is how the victimizers in the public
square get to yell “victim” and martyrdom and sainthood all at the same time as
they are laughing all the way to the bank?